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velvet4510 · 1 month

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i saw these two people in the tolkien discord server i’m in say this, and while i can see their point (i 100% believe that men should be able to be affectionate without romantic undertones), i just feel like so many people get the wrong idea that samfro shippers merely see them as “gay and cute”

most of us accept all interpretations of their relationship, whether that’s soulmates, queer-platonic, romantic, etc

i was wondering what your opinion on this is??

Great question! SO sorry for the delay in responding. I hope to make my reply worth the wait. Also, this answer will be really long - sorry again - but I have many thoughts on this.

I completely agree that men should be able to be affectionate without it being romantic. Women do not have this problem of fearing open affection due to assumptions about sexuality, and I think it’s a terrible symptom of toxic masculinity for men to forbid themselves from showing affection out of fear of it being misinterpreted. LOTR is full of many beautiful examples of how men can be emotionally vulnerable with each other and how platonic friends can still physically express innocent affection (Aragorn’s kiss to Boromir’s forehead is a great example). Modern society should definitely follow the examples set by these characters.

The thing is, as a straight woman, I did not go into LOTR expecting to see any same-sex romances at all. And the majority of male friendships depicted in the book and films never gave me any sense of romantic undertones. Unlike many fans, I do not ship Legolas and Gimli because I recognize that their relationship is a bridge between Elves and Dwarves, proof that they can get along, that despite their differences, they can still find common ground and respect each other and be friends. This to me is a far more important message than a generic “forbidden romantic love story” that many view their relationship as. Their bond isn’t necessarily about wanting to sleep together, but more about recognizing that they can like and be fond of each other, and not allow their parents or cultures to influence how they view each other. I do not hate the Gigolas ship, of course, and people can feel free to ship them if they want to. But to me, they fall under the category described in the discord that you have shared: their friendly intimacy does not necessarily signify anything romantic. Even their journey into the West together does not have to be a romantic thing; I see it as Gimli not wanting to say goodbye to any more of his friends, after losing Merry, Pippin, and Aragorn, and instead going on one last adventure with his soul-brother Legolas.

Frodo and Sam, however, have always stood out to me as being different from all the other friendships in LOTR. I didn’t even take any pause in the fact that they’re both male. I just saw two people in love. It’s just in how they are written, and in Elijah and Sean’s beautiful performances. I totally agree that ANY interpretation of their relationship is valid. I think it is very wrong for any shipper of these two to insult or declare someone “wrong” to see them as just friends. But it’s the same the other way around. It is unfair for non-shippers to hate on shippers. While the argument regarding Tolkien’s Catholicism is an understandable one, texts and characters do develop lives of their own over time. Texts are meant to be interpreted. Tolkien himself wrote that he did not want to enforce his own beliefs within the story, and instead preferred to leave it open to readers to apply their own views and perspectives to it. He basically was inviting us to make interpretations that deviate from his own. He may not have had sexuality in mind when he wrote this, but if he were alive, I very much doubt he’d be hypocritical enough to criticize people for doing the very thing he encouraged them to do, especially since he was smart enough to know that not every reader of his work was or would be Catholic, and thus may not see certain aspects the way he did.

The main, unchangeable, factual point about Frodo and Sam’s relationship is that they love each other. That’s it. They go from formal master and servant to two people who have been through hell and back together, and in the process, formed a bond that nobody else will ever understand. This point stands, whether their specific feelings for each other are platonic or romantic. To view them as lovers does not take away from or undermine the foundations of how Tolkien shaped their characters and the connection they build.

It also bothers me how those who criticize this ship use the word “gay.” Bear in mind, of course, that I’m not an actual member of the LGBT community, and I’m speaking based on my love for my many LGBT friends and relatives, and the efforts I’ve made to understand and empathize with this community, and to never be among those who hate people based on who they love. But I’ve learned enough by now to know that it is quite ignorant of people to truncate the idea of Frodo and Sam being in love as “they’re gay.” Sam is not gay, as shown by his love for Rosie. To ship Frodo and Sam is not to erase Rosie or pretend Sam doesn’t love her. Sam has the biggest heart of any fictional character I’ve ever seen, and I, like many shippers, don’t find it implausible that he has room enough in that heart to have two great loves.

On that note, I’ll now signify that in the text Frodo and Sam have many moments that no other pair of male characters have, which serve as actual potential evidence of a romance. It says in the text itself that he is “torn in two” between Frodo and Rosie. No other pair of male characters in LOTR has any moment like this. Aragorn does not feel torn between Arwen and his friends, for instance. Sam hesitating to marry Rosie if it means he can’t be near Frodo is a very unique detail that adds weight to this “ship.” Not to mention the way Sam strokes Frodo’s hand in Rivendell and blushes, or calls himself “your Sam,” or has a Romeo-like moment of falsely believing Frodo is dead, or longs for the touch of Frodo’s hand in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Plus, don’t forget that in another of Tolkien’s writings, Elanor directly compares Sam losing Frodo to Celeborn losing his wife. Also, I and many others have described how Frodo and Sam’s story directly parallels that of two canon lovers, Beren and Lúthien. Again, platonic interpretations of all this are valid, but it’s important to remember that shippers are not making things up. We’re not saying or believing that Frodo and Sam are in love “because they’re cute”. There are many moments between them in the text that support this interpretation, not the least of which is a direct parallel to a canon romantic couple - and without context, many of their exchanges and moments could easily be seen in a romantic light. (Sam watching Frodo sleep and saying “I love him, whether or no,” and declaring his one wish after potentially completing the Quest alone is not to return to the Shire and Rosie, but to return to Frodo’s body and never leave him again … all these things are right there in the text. Merry and Pippin, Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn and Boromir, none of them have any moments like this.)

And Sam’s journey across the Sea does not have nearly as much ambiguity as Gimli’s. Gimli has more to gain by going than staying; to stay would be to be left alone with no family and no more Elves or hobbits around, while to go would be to stand by his best friend, see the woman he loves/deeply admires again (Galadriel), and not face any more goodbyes. He wouldn’t really lose anything by leaving with Legolas, only gain. Sam’s circumstances are completely different. He has many people in the Shire; 13 children and countless grandchildren who could take care of him. He could easily spend his last days peacefully living with Elanor and watching her children grow, as any old hobbit would typically do. To sail West would be to lose and permanently be separated from a countless number of loved ones. And though he was affected by the Ring as a Ring-bearer, he held it for a very brief time, short enough for it to not prevent him from having a normal life after the war. It cannot be easily assumed that the lasting effect of the Ring on him was so powerful that it made him happier to leave his family than to stay with them. Because what would be waiting for him in Valinor? Gimli had two people in Valinor to whom he was very close, Legolas and Galadriel, as opposed to no loved ones back in Middle-earth. But Sam had one person in Valinor to whom he was very close, Frodo, as opposed to dozens of loved ones back in Middle-earth. The fact that he chooses Frodo over his family, to live with Frodo rather than die with and rest beside Rosie, to see Frodo again rather than see his family as much as possible in his remaining days…is a major point worth considering, and another thing that adds a layer of credibility to the idea of shipping them.

So to sum it all up, to say “you just ship Frodo and Sam because you don’t know what friendship is, because you think they’re cute so they must want to sleep together” is a MASSIVE trivialization/oversimplification/misunderstanding and completely ignores the things I’ve just laid out, particularly the distinctions between their relationship and those of other male pairings in LOTR.

Ok, ramble time is over…Boy, I hope that made at least one lick of sense! Haha.

#lotr #jrr tolkien #samfro #lord of the rings #lotr books #frodo x sam #sam x frodo #samfrodo #frodo/sam #frodo baggins #samwise gamgee #rosie cotton #beren and luthien #legolas and gimli #gimli #legolas

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tolkien-feels · 1 year

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Okay this here is quite possibly my favorite Elrond scene so let me ramble about it a little bit, because I don't think I did it when I liveblogged the book last time

Elrond, at this time in his life, is pretty much defined by his wisdom. He's the person people go to for advice. Even among the Wise his wisdom seems to be valued

And like, his assessment of the future here is right. Pippin spends pretty much the entire Quest terrified as the realities of it all set in. And the Shire is in danger, and Merry and Pippin are key in the efforts of the hobbits to save it. But they arrive too late, and possibly (?) they could have prevented a lot of the worst parts of the Scouring if they had been there

This isn't Elrond being afraid and imagining perils that aren't there or that are being exaggerated by Sauron to freak him out. This is Elrond quite literally accurately predicting the rest of the book!!!!

But Gandalf says "Yes, that is true, but nevertheless, you should trust love even above wisdom." And so Elrond does.

I... really don't know that I could do what Elrond does here. The amount of estel required to simply trust that there are maybe powers even Elrond, in all his wisdom and foresight, cannot reliably predict would be quite beyond me, even knowing he's in Arda, a place where estel tends to be rewarded by the narrative

Like, I'm nodding along as Elrond speaks of how strength of arms won't beat Sauron, and how the Fellowship should be chosen in part symbolically. That tracks with how I know Arda works.

But "the power of love is stronger than even accurate foresight wisely interpreted"? It makes me want to say "No!!!! Nothing can beat accurate foresight wisely interpreted!!!!!!!!" but even without having read LotR, I should know this is true; I have read the Silm too many times!!

"Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart."

It doesn't surprise me that Elrond wouldn't fall prey to loving too well the work of his hands, but that he doesn't love too well the devices of his heart surprises me, because frankly? If I were Elrond, I think I would!!!!! But he does not! You can see his temptation, but he turns away from it, and chooses true hope instead!!!

So yeah I really can't help but stop every time I read this and just feel the full force of Elrond's sigh while knowing full well I would never have chosen as he does here - even knowing how the story ends, which he does not. Just. Elrond is such an amazing character

#lotr newsletter spoilers

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gossip-girl-of-middleearth · 2 years

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HI I don’t know if your request are open so I figured I would send one anyway and then if they were closed you could just ignore it lol

BUT I had this idea and it’s been in my head for days and I don’t feel like writing it myself soooooo

Do you think you can do a one-shot or, yk, whatever you’re comfortable with, for a Legolas x Reader where the reader is kinda like Jaskier? Like they’re dramatic af, are a bard, and isn’t an elf but has somehow just been alive and in peak condition for way longer then they should’ve been? Like Legolas and Reader don’t really get along at first when they met because Reader was traveling with Thorin and Company and stuff and even after he figured out they weren’t bad he was still like “my GOD are they annoying.”

And then Gandalf seeks them out after the fellowship is formed they’re actually super useful bc they know like 10 languages, have traveled almost everywhere, and is actually very good with a sword. Gandalf brings the fellowship to a seemingly random tavern and Legolas just stops bc he recognizes them immediately and is just like “oh my god, PLEASE NOT THEM FU—“

But yk after that they like fall in love and shiz 🙄

SORRY THIS IS LIKE SO SPECIFIC OR UR NOT TAKING REQUEST it’s just I love ur writing, no other lotr blogs I’ve found are taking request, and also you seem to like Jaskier so I figured u might enjoy this a little ?? 😭😭

ANYWAYS EVEN IF YOU DON’T WRITE THIS THANKS FOR READING IT AND I LOVE UR WRITING SM ITS SO GOOD 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Sing Me A River (Legolas x Bard! Reader)

Author’s Note: HELLOOOO, FELLOW DEAR HEART! My requests technically are always open, it’s just a matter of if I ever get around to them lmao. Naturally, I get a lot of requests. Even more naturally, someone requests something and throws the word ‘Jaskier’ in there I’m writing this baby ASAP. Now, this thing grew legs of its own so you’ll probably have to request a part two in the asks so I can get that to you. I just really wanted to put something out tonight, so boom, two-parter. Maybe three. Hey, let’s just see where it goes. Now, believe me when I say I tried to find a gif that wasn’t Jaskier, but apparently if you type in ‘medieval bard lute gif’ into Google images Jaskier is the golden child of the hour. Anywhooooo hope this is what you were going for! I’ll get onto part two soon — you just gotta put it in the asks!

Warnings: Crude jokes made by reader all for the sake of the guts and glory of an epic banger of a song. Mentions adult content. (Bards will be bards).

Synopsis: Like all relevant characters of Middle-earth back in the day, you joined the Company on their Go-Fund-Me campaign to reclaim Erebor. You were a nobody bard back then but the success of your relations with kings and stories of defeating dragons made you a big hit. Speaking of hit, you and Legolas don’t get on. You made one too many hits about him that painted his royal family in a bad light. Oops. Now, Sauron is back and the Fellowship may just need your help. It’s mostly just Gandalf vouching for you, though. Oh, and fangirl Boromir ofc. They find you singing a frankly defamatory song about Legolas in a lively tavern at the height of your fame (you’re essentially One Direction circa 2012 big in Middle-earth in this fic). Tension brews as you’re ultimately asked to join a second Go-Fund-Me campaign.

The evening was late in hour but early of chores, as Gandalf and Elrond poured themselves over maps of Middle-earth. Various members of the newly-formed Fellowship hung about the open-aired room, pondering each other with curious glances.

Everyone shifted uncomfortably, wondering who’d prove to be the best travel mate for the next few months. It was as if no one knew what to do with their hands or feet, as they stood about awkwardly.

What was there to talk about, anyway? Economic investments and the rising housing crisis in the wake of the upcoming war? With so many races in the room, it was hard to navigate cultural customs, let alone figure out who was of what social standing based on clothing alone. A prince certainly had no place discussing such mutual matters with a gardener, nor a Captain of Gondor with a ranger.

No, it was best everyone waited until Gandalf and Elrond announced a travel route.

“This would steer you best from the path of both Isengard and its scouts,” Elrond concluded, pointing and dragging one finger down the tattered map.

“That’ll bring us into long-overrun townships,” Gandalf pointed out. “Middle-earth is no longer the safely presumptuous-centric land it used to be. People from all over Arda have now flocked for its resources and previously-thought safety.”

“Secrecy is best bought when surrounded by languages that cannot understand you nor you them,” Elrond countered, raising a brow and looking up at the wizard.

Gandalf raised a hand and scratched at his wiry beard. “No… But perhaps we could benefit from an additional team member for the passage? One who knows, say, ten languages across the seas and land underfoot?”

Elrond’s face quickly fell into disapproval. He moved back from the map as if standing too close to it would conjure up the bard’s presence alone, for said bard certainly dwelled somewhere within it, if the local posters unceremoniously plastered on historical podiums in Rivendell detailing the latest show were proof enough alone.

Legolas noticed this behaviour and kicked himself off the wall. He’d had run-ins with bards before – or, one, at least, and one was certainly enough. He quit twirling a knife in his hands, a gift from his father for his begetday long ago, and paid close attention.

“Ten languages would most certainly aid you, but…” the usually reserved lord made a face of cringe, “must you really bring along your friend? Do you even know where they are?”

Gandalf suddenly looked bashful. He reached into his satchel and removed a flyer. It had your pouty face on it and colourful words detailing where your next show was and the date. “I meant to visit them for one of their shows, before getting side-tracked…”

Elrond tried to not judge his friend, as he glanced up from your poster and back to Gandalf. He raised his brows and sighed, resigning himself to the idea. You had certainly grown in fame over the last few decades since your efforts in fighting the dragon fueled your reputation and songs, and certainly the fame had added to your already eccentric ego.

“Very well, if that is your will, I will support it… Just, don’t invite them back for a concert, please; my sons are still recovering from the last one, as is my winery.”

Gandalf nodded at the lord and smiled. “Nonsense, our bard is of the utmost integrity. I have nothing but faith.”

Legolas looked between the lord and wizard, quirking a brow. He tried to view the poster before it was placed back inside the satchel, but alas Gandalf unknowingly blocked his view.

But then, the prince suddenly recalled you in full detail from the fight against the dragon, and your time spent in the Mirkwood dungeons. You were clearly mortal, and that was many years ago.

Satisfied with the thought, Legolas nodded to himself in reassurance. There was no way you were still alive and kicking. With any luck, you were fast asleep in a chair somewhere, millions of leagues away.

Oh, you were in a chair alright. Except standing on top of it, one foot on the backrest and one on the seat. You certainly weren’t asleep, either, nor was your performance lulling anyone into such a slumber. There would be no lullabies here tonight, good sir.

Instead, on top of the chair, you belted out lyrics to the song you wrote about your time captured in Mirkwood with the Company, using the foot on the backrest to push the chair downwards, where you dramatically landed on the floor and kept on playing around the lively tavern with your lute.

Folks of all nationalities and origins joined in, for how could they not? You knew how to play the song in over ten different languages and were finally onto the Common Speech version. Everyone sung along as you made your way around the floor, illuminated in a thousand different arrays of golden candlelight.

You alluded to the Mirkwood Elves being absolute idiots, to put it lightly. It was only unfortunate that the Fellowship, led by Gandalf, walked in the moment you made a crude innuendo about Legolas’ hair being nearly as pasty as the spider’s webs surrounding his forested home. Something about incest, too.

It wasn’t very nice, but what could you say? You hated the pretentious white-haired family and they you. Perhaps composing a ballad with the dwarves about the elves’ wine-stained teeth in the dungeons planted the seed of distaste in the first place, but alas.

Gimli clapped his hands merrily and tapped his foot. “Oh-ho-ho! ‘Tis a CLASSIC back home! I’ve been meaning to meet the bard from my father’s tales for many years now! What an honourable night. Let us drink to it!”

Pippin nodded faster than light at Gimli and then Merry, speaking before racing off with his cousin and dwarven friend to the bar.

“Aye! We’ve heard this one, too! Even all the way out in the Shire!” Pippin looked up at Legolas, who’d just walked in with Aragorn right behind him. “Funny, I didn’t know there were other white-haired elves such as yourself and your father in Mirkwood, your highness. What are the chances of that!”

Just then, you sung of Legolas by title and name, confirming every crude lyric to be indeed about him towards the end of the song. Something mean about his father, too.

Pippin’s mouth parted and his brows shot up in surprise. He quickly shrugged it off, though – looking up at the elf casually before joining Merry and Gimli by the bar. “Oh, they are singing about you! That makes more sense!”

Legolas furrowed his own brows, looking away from the departing hobbit and across the tavern right as you came to the finale of the song, earning rapturous applause. And then, his eyes grew wide.

Gandalf looked bashful as he stood with Boromir. The captain was grinning at your performance – whistling as you took a dramatic bow as the cheers carried on. Frodo and Sam looked between each other but shared a silent nod, and afterwards, they joined the rest at the bar.

Seething, the prince snapped his gaze up at Gandalf. “THEM? Are you SERIOUS? How could you possibly not tell me?! They are the most arrogant, dim-witted, crude, annoying—”

“Now, now, Legolas,” Gandalf cut in, placing a hand on the swiftly rising elf’s shoulders. “Y/n and yourself may have an… adverse history, but that whole Mirkwood incident was put to rest years ago. If I recall, you both parted ways amicably at the end of the battle. There may have even been a smile, too, if I recall very well!”

“Overjoyed to be rid, as I remember it,” Legolas rolled his eyes, landing them in your direction. You took a sip of ale and felt a gaze, or, glare, lingering in your direction. When you locked eyes with the angry ones of the prince, you widened them for only a moment, before narrowing them and smirking mischievously.

Oh, he didn’t like that.

Hoisting your sloshing ale out to the side, you widened both arms. You were stood atop a tavern table, now pointing in the prince’s direction.

“Oh, my stars! Do my eyes deceive me?” Your naturally loud voice caught the attention of the tavern again, who all no doubt were hoping for an encore. “Ladies and gentleman, if it isn’t the star of the hour! Well, besides me, of course – but no, I should share the limelight; it’s the muse of my song, Legolas of the Woodland Realm!”

Everyone all looked in his direction. Many laughed loudly, some whistled appreciatively, and others who believed the lyrics muttered behind cupped hands to conceal their words and grins.

Aragorn shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t good to bring this much attention to themselves, especially given the circumstances. One look from Aragorn sent up at Gandalf voiced his concern. The wizard nodded back and drew you over with a beckoning hand.

You finished off the rest of your ale and encouraged other bards to pick up the music again. Once the sound of flutes and lutes filled the air, you made your way through the crowd, placing your hand over your heart and responding earnestly to every compliment as you walked past.

"Y/n! I saw you play when I was a child!"

"My niece is a HUGE fan!"

"Do you sing at weddings?!"

And soon enough, you were in front of the trio.

“Gandalf the Grey,” you grinned up, slinging your lute across your back.

He responded warmly, throwing your bard title in as he did so. “You’ve exceeded your previous standing upon the pedestal of fame. Apparently, this song has been heard all over the land.”

At the mention of the song, you turned to Legolas. “Ahh, has it now? Judging by the star-struck expression upon your oddly fine-tuned visage, I’m guessing this is your first time?”

Legolas narrowed his eyes and kept them locked on yours. “First and last time.”

Without missing a beat, you replied, “Aw, buddy. Don’t worry. Being a two-thousand-year-old virgin isn’t that weird. Don’t count yourself out just yet.”

His face dropped. “Wha—No! That’s not at all what I—”

“I must say, dear bard,” Boromir cut in, firmly shaking your hand. “My little brother and I have seen you perform in Gondor before, and we are both great admirers of your work. Might I please trouble you for a signature made out to ‘Faramir’? I might not get this opportunity again.”

You shrugged it off coolly. “Yeah, sure! Always happy to meet a fan!”

Legolas stared in horror at the interaction for a moment. “What is happening right now..?”

Aragorn placed a hand on his shoulder and stepped in. “Y/n, I’m afraid we have not only come for review of your work tonight.”

At that, he looked up at Gandalf urgingly. The wizard sighed and nodded. “Indeed not. Might there be somewhere more private we can talk?”

Briefly looking up from the signature you were writing on a handkerchief, you nodded your head from side to side in thought and pursed your lips, speaking as you wrote. “I’ve got a room here. I’m not sure we’ll all fit, but I suppose we can figure something out."

You sent a wink Legolas’ way, whose face was still frozen somewhere between contemplation, shock, and horror.

“You should be dead,” he decided upon moments later.

Feigning alarm, you looked over your shoulder. “Why? The song really that bad? You hired the world’s worst assassin to take me out and they couldn’t even finish the job?”

Learning how to dance with your words again, Legolas replied straight to the point. “You look the same as you did all those years ago. You’re mortal. You should be dead, or very, very elderly, at the least.”

You blinked back at him. “Was there a question in there somewhere, or…?”

Noticing all the attention you were drawing, Gandalf and Aragorn decided to usher this meeting along elsewhere.

“Ah, Y/n,” Gandalf slid in, smiling tensely as he noticed Legolas’ fingers curl backwards, as if instinctively reaching for his bow. “Perhaps we should continue this upstairs? We have much to discuss, as mentioned before.”

You raked your eyes over the prince’s face for a further few seconds. He all but glared back. You dropped your eyes to his hands, noticing the way they curled the same as the wizard did. Smirking, you looked back up into the prince’s eyes – locking them there as you responded to Gandalf.

“Great idea.”

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niennawept · 14 days

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20 Questions for Writers

I was tagged by @lordoftherazzles and by @thenookienostradamus! Thank you both! These are some cool questions!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? Thirteen at the moment (not counting an Adar headcanon collection), but likely to be more soon.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 170,865 (not bad for a year and a quarter)

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien broadly (so far it's been Rings of Power, The Silmarillion, and The Hobbit - no LotR yet, but I do have an idea for one)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Click with caution, all of these but the second one are rated E; apparently, I am mostly known for Adar smut: Scars of Silver and Gold, Because the world is ending, Mistletoe Mischief, Calendar Girl, Until the Stars Burn Out

5. Do you respond to comments? Might take me a bit, but yes, I always do. I figure that someone gave me a little of their time in writing out a comment and I can give them some of mine in return. It's especially fun when people are predicting things; I love hearing what they think will happen.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Mmmm. I think it's probably Scars? Without spoilers, my protagonist lost something very important to her and although there's a lot of good things about that ending - she's still going to have that loss to grieve in the next fic and it'll inform her next arc. I'd say it's still a bittersweet ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I don't really do purely happy endings? I write a lot of hopeful endings, but most of them have some darkness lurking under them. I guess if I have to pick one, it's into the wild because that's technically a fix-it fic with Nienor getting saved by Mablung. Although, I might continue it some day, and it would inevitably get some Nienna-the-Song-is-tinted-with-grief flavoring.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Uh, yes. I'm not sure what "what kind" means here? I guess I've written a variety- from kind of dreamlike and romantic to fics featuring BDSM-related kinks.

10. Do you write crossovers? I have never written one. I think that I'd probably never directly write one. But I might do something like shove Elrond into the plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for a bisexual awakening set sometime in the Second Age. Not sure if that's a crossover or just a retelling though.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. Into Russian, if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago and I'm not in that fandom anymore.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah, I'd say my THAUC piece counts as co-written in the sense that my artist partner and I talked through the main ideas and beats of the story together.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Uhhh for Tolkien, I'm afraid I don't have one (I like a lot of ships, but there's not one all-consuming one). So - I guess I pick Sesshomaru/Kagome from Inuyasha? That's the pairing I read when I don't know what else to read.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don't start a lot of WIPs. I have a lot more ideas for fics than I have documents or text written, but I do have a Finrod piece that I'm not sure I'll ever finish. I have a lingering idea that might save it, but I think that needs more time in the oven.

16. What are your writing strengths? Mmm - I think worldbuilding, specifically for culture is one of my strengths. I also think that I have a pretty good ability to make OCs that people care about (something that was important with a mostly OC cast).

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I struggle with internality a lot. I find thoughts cumbersome to write, because I process most things by talking them out or writing them down. I also think I could tighten up the cast of characters and subplots. It's something I'll definitely be careful with in novels going forward.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It really depends on the fic. In Tolkien's world, I think so much of culture is tied up in language that it's a little hard not to include some bits and snatches of other languages. It's important to provide translations in text, I think, but otherwise, go for it if it's important to your characters and your plot.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Alas, I don't talk about that fandom anymore. The author turned out to be terrible.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Definitely Scars of Silver and Gold. It's my first completed longfic and I'm very proud of it, honestly. Are there some things I'd do differently? Yes. But I do love it. Honorable mention to peaches we devour, dusty skin and all. The YEARNING.

tagging (no pressure, just love): @runawaymun, @polutrope, @melestasflight, @fishing4stars

#niennaanswers #writing tag game #thank you both so much for tagging me!#this was very fun to do

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thelordofgifs · 10 months

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Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Quarterfinal

Urwen vs Eldacar of Gondor

Urwen:

Also known as Lalaith, she was the elder daughter of Húrin and Morwen and died age three of the Evil Breath from Angband.

MY SWEET LAUGHING DAUGHTER SHE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER

In response to her death, Hurin says this "Marrer of Middle-earth, would that I might see you face to face, and mar you as my lord Fingolfin did!' His love and subsequent loss of her is definitely a motivator, I think, for his later valiant defiance of Morgoth! So she may have died young but she had a big impact. (I mean if we want to apply the butterfly effect she kinda caused the fall of Nargothrond: motivated Hurin to deny Morgoth, got Turin cursed to give really bad advice about bridges, no more Nargothrond. How many 3 year olds could claim that? Also more seriously, a lot of the deaths in the Silm are violent and awful. But we little of mundane, quiet deaths from sickness. A young child dying in this way stands out in its more realist tragedy. And it shows the subtler ways Morgoth sowed despair in middle earth and also that he knew the Edain were a threat. The 'evil breath' mostly killed 'the children or the rising youth in the houses of Men.'

Eldacar of Gondor:

The twenty-first King of Gondor, also known as Vinitharya. During his reign the conflict known as the Kin-strife occurred and he was forced from his throne for ten years.

The blorbo of all time actually. He’s the protagonist of one of the most interesting stories in the LoTR appendices, the Kin-strife, and everything about his life story is so fascinating! His father was the crown prince of Gondor and his mother was the princess of Rhovanion so not a Númenorean. As a result all the racist nobles of Gondor made noises about how Eldacar was of “lesser race” and wouldn’t live as long as a “true Dúnadan”. One of the most fascinating examples of fantasy racism in Tolkien’s works imo – the bigotry is awful but the bigots have a shield to hide behind! Obviously their concerns are actually valid because they just don’t want their king to die young! (Their concerns aren’t valid. But I think the worldbuilding here is great.) Anyway Eldacar was born in Rhovanion and given the birth-name Vinitharya, but when he returned to Gondor aged five he was obliged to take up the Quenya name Eldacar, presumably to pacify all the racists in Gondor. He’s the EMBODIMENT of mixed-race/immigrant child trauma my beloved. Eventually his father died and he ascended to the throne of Gondor, but then his shitty second cousin Castamir (all my homies hate Castamir he’s the worst) started the civil war known as the Kin-strife and usurped Eldacar’s throne. Eldacar was forced to flee north to Rhovanion but Castamir captured his eldest son Ornendil and had him cruelly put to death which is SO SAD. But Eldacar, being brave and resourceful and clever and extremely cool, put together an alliance with his mother’s kinsfolk in Rhovanion and after ten years reclaimed his throne, which turned out to be slightly easier than expected because Castamir was The Worst and all his subjects hated him. And Eldacar PERSONALLY fought and killed Castamir HIMSELF and AVENGED HIS SON which is extremely important when you consider all the cringefail elves in the legendarium whose quests for revenge didn’t really go anywhere at all. Then he lived to be 235 proving that all the idiot racists who were worried about his lifespan didn’t have any idea what they were talking about, as is par for the course with racists. Also the Kin-strife itself has such far-reaching consequences for the history of Gondor! The Corsairs of Umbar, Gondor’s long-standing enemies, are actually followers of the descendants of Castamir. And during the Usurpation of Castamir Osgiliath was sacked and burned, leading to the beginning of its decline as Gondor’s greatest city. Even though Eldacar’s story is, to me, ultimately hopeful, it’s also such a fascinating turning point in the history of Gondor. Also ALSO he’s explicitly surrounded by textual ghosts which is really fascinating. His father Valacar has “children” plural – so Eldacar had siblings!! What were they like? How did they react to it all? And his son Aldamir is described as Eldacar’s second son and third child, meaning that he had a daughter too. Who was she?? What happened to her? He’s such a blorbo and there’s so much interesting stuff to dig into around him and he has to win this entire tournament please please please❤️

Quarterfinals masterpost

#obscure tolkien blorbo #urwen #eldacar #hi um this may come as a surprise but. it would mean a lot to me if you voted eldacar <3 #queuevienen

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theboarsbride · 1 year

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"A Court of Thorns and Roses" Reading Update I

Page 101 - 24%

So, some major notes so far:

-I refuse to believe SJM knows how to write poor people. I refuse to believe that Feyre's family has been poor for a decade. How tf can the sisters be so dainty and act so oblivious and bitchy about work for survival after NEARLY 10 YEARS OF ECONOMIC DESTITUTION???????Just their mentalities, how they react to being poor, how they treat their belongings, how they treat their food, how they handle their money, etc. doesn't really line up.

-I can't stand SJM's writing style. SO MANY MF EM DASHES HOLY FUCK AND THEYRE IN PLACES WHERE THEY'RE UNNECESSARY. And also she reuses the same sentence structure, and it bothers meeeeee. (ex.- i was going to the bathroom, which was white and clean and shining. Then, I went to school, a place that was dull and bland and boring.) Like jfc. I wholeheartedly believe the conspiracy that no one actually edits SJM's book because good LORD.

- Feyre is dumb and deserves death. Like the instance with the Pooka. She suddenly sees her crippled father on Tamlin's land in Prythian in the middle of the night??? Given the wary hostility and aggression and distrust she's been displaying towards everyone and everything so far in Prythian, why isn't she doing the same in this instance???? She's said herself she is wary of faerie tricks, and acknowledged that not even whole, able-bodied humans are able to survive in Prythian without the help of a faerie, so why would she think her DISABLED FATHER, who is helpless in the mortal realm, be any different??? And why would she CARE that her father has come for her??? Did she not hope that her family starves without her, so that they realize she's important to them and she holds them in such an embittered contempt?????

- I LOVE Lucien <3 I like this fox-boy, he is funny and actually treats Feyre like the murderer she is (because yes, she's a murderer, and takes PRIDE in having killed a faerie. Which Feyre has some nerve being hostile to faeries who have been nothing but courteous and gracious with her, and thinking THEY are in the wrong when she was the one that MURDERED their friend).

- why couldn't Tamlin remain more like his beast form, making this more of a BATB retelling? I literally imagine him looking like Legolas but JACKED. This is where my ire of 'BATB but the beast is just a hot guy that growls or has behavioral problems' first began. It's such a shallow version of the story and completely misses the point. And the fact that this is also a retelling of The Ballad of Tam-Lin, a Scottish folktale, and does really nothing that's an homage to the story aside from Tamlin's name, the fact he shape-shifts (albeit BARELY), and there's (poorly written) fae really irks me.

-for once I want SJM to actually describe paintings rather than describing what the painting is of. I don't believe for one minute that SJM did more research into art, style, etc. because for the life of me I couldn't tell you what Feyre's art style is, nor do I really care because her having painting as a hobby is so pointless and has no effect on her character whatsoever.

- SJM is lazy as fuck with her world building. ex.- Lucien saying capital 'h' Hell, as in Christian Hell, when humans are agnostic/atheist with a sparse number of fae-worshiping cults (and were once implied to have had a polytheistic religion) and fae worship the Cauldron and other faerie deities so like.....why not use a few extra braincells to create her own version of Hell rather than using lazy cultural shorthand that, by the logic of this book's world, doesn't work????; underutilizing fae lore so now they're either underdeveloped spectral entities or LOTR elves... BORINGGGG!! GIVE US ACTUAL FAE IN LITERATURE AGAIN!!!! (*applauds Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries and Krystal Sutherland's House of Hollow*)

These are my major thoughts for the first quarter of the book.... See y'all again at 50%!

#jojo reads #anti sjm #anti sarah j maas #anti acotar #anti feyre

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markantonys · 1 year

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amol chapters 38-end. the final recap!!

egwene talking to rand 😭😭😭 “fool. her voice in his head. fond, but sharp. am i not allowed to be a hero too?” i cried! “let go, rand. let us die for what we believe, and do not try to steal that from us. you have embraced your death. embrace mine.” 😭😭😭😭

rand finally releases The List (which sanderson makes sure to tell us again is now gender-inclusive lmao) i always hated The List, but seeing it used in a meaningful way and transformed from a List Of Fridged Women For Manpain to a representation of rand learning to let people make their own decisions and not feel responsible for what they choose was Very Nice! “ilyena was last. we are reborn, rand thought, so we can do better the next time. [someone else speaking - egwene, i assume, or dare i wonder if it’s ilyena herself?] so do better.” 😭😭

“mat forced down his grief. that wasn’t what lan would have wanted. instead, mat raised his ashandarei. ‘tai’shar malkier!’ he screamed with all the force he could. ‘lan mandragoran, you bloody wonderful man! you did it!’” 😭😭

and i finally get to the iconic “it was not about me. it’s never been about me! it was about them all.” 😭😭😭😭 let’s break down the Them All that it was about.

“it was about a woman, torn and beaten down, cast from her throne and made a puppet - a woman who had crawled when she had to. that woman still fought.” genuinely absolutely no idea who this is referring to jkjfg my first thought was morgase but she doesn’t feel important enough to be included in this exclusive list. siuan? but rand might have seen that she’s dead and not still fighting. lord above let it not be tuon lmao

“it was about a man that love repeatedly forsook, a man who found relevance in a world that others would have let pass them by. a man who remembered stories, and who took fool boys under his wing when the smarter move would have been to keep on walking.” thom!

“it was about a woman with a secret, a hope for the future. a woman who had hunted the truth before others could. a woman who had given her life, then had it returned.” moiraine!

“it was about a man whose family was taken from him, but who stood tall in his sorrow and protected those he could.” upon first read i thought this one was lan and was laughing my ass off that perrin was not included in this list, but this could also be perrin i guess.

“it was about a woman who refused to believe that she could not help, could not heal those who had been harmed.” nynaeve!

“it was about a hero who insisted with every breath that he was anything but a hero.” mat! okay but rand calling everyone just “a man” or “a woman” but calling mat alone a HERO 😭😭 that’s his husband!

“it was about a woman who would not bend her back while she was beaten, and who shone with the light for all who watched. including rand.” egwene!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

i really want that one to be lan and not perrin because god it would be so hilarious if rand didn’t even include perrin here, seeing as perrin is still sleeping jkjfkgj same energy as the end of that one lotr movie when all frodo’s friends are coming to his bedside and he beams and greets each of them by name and then legolas steps in and frodo just kinda stares at him and says nothing

“the son of battles. i will take him. i will take them all, adversary.” the dark one threatening MAT SPECIFICALLY in an attempt to scare rand 😭😭😭😭 everybody knows they’re married!!!! and then mat hears rand’s voice in his mind FIRST before everybody else on the battlefield is able to hear it!!! psychologically connected husbands!!!!!

lan is still alive [pretends to be shocked] man show-haters have absolutely NO call to be shitting on nynaeve’s “fakeout death” in 1x08 when the books have the following fakeout deaths and/or real deaths that were reversed by balefire:

mat (x3)

lan

moiraine

aviendha

galad

numerous forsaken

arguably faile in this book

arguably elayne after the gholam

RAND!!! (still to come)

and i’m positive there are more that i didn’t come up with off the top of my head

it’s at the point where there are so many fakeout deaths (in this book alone!) that i feel genuinely cheated that egwene’s and gawyn’s had to stick when no one else’s did! also, it feels kinda scummy to neatly kill off both of one married couple and everyone else gets to live and doesn’t have to lose their partner. not that i WANTED lan to die for real and devastate nynaeve, but it just feels...........i don’t know, kind of unfair. like some kind of reverse “pair the spares” jkjfg particularly since egwene/gawyn was set up as the only romance that wouldn’t follow the heteronormative Babies Ever After route and would instead remain focused on their careers. almost like their survival is not as ~important~ since they aren’t interested in settling down and starting a family and being parents (which is kind of exactly what nynaeve told egwene after her test for the shawl, that people who have families are more important/care more about the world). tho i guess lanaeve hasn’t really had any babies on the brain, besides during nynaeve’s accepted test, and perrin and faile haven’t really either, although in discussions of heirs they did make it clear they’re intending to have kids. aha, i’ve cracked it: it’s because all the other romantic relationships involve one or both parties being a monarch who requires hereditary heirs, whereas that’s not the case for egwene and gawyn. so they can both get killed off because they don’t need to live long enough to have babies 🙄

i, personally, love Babies Ever After and want most of my ships to have babies all the time, however, it just feels sus that the only major character deaths are also two halves of the only couple that wasn’t set up to have babies. i was so obsessed with the energy of gawene being a childfree power couple who dote on avirandlayne’s kids and give them the best presents (because they are the cool childfree aunt and uncle who are rich and travel a lot since they don’t have kids) but don’t want kids themselves. i want that vision dammit!!!!! what i would’ve done is kill off perrin but have faile already be pregnant so she can have her heir. single mom faile would’ve been incredible to see!

okay, back on topic

olver blows the horn. hmmmmm. it does seem that it would’ve been logistically impossible to get it to mat in time (tho they could’ve just had egwene bring it from the tower to merrilor in the first place. actually why the hell DIDN’T she do that?) and it makes decent enough sense that mat dying would’ve severed him from the horn. but it just feels super lame that “mat has to blow the horn at the last battle” has been A Thing for 13 books and then actually he didn’t have to lmao this is ALL the more reason to give the horn to perrin in the show since mat doesn’t even fucking do anything with it anyway! perrin saw them steal the horn in 1x08, he’ll be on the hunt for it in s2 while mat is doing his book 3 plotline instead, and he needs more to do while mat needs less (at the last battle specifically and also in general), so giving him the horn would be perfect. and would tie in nicely with faile being the one to fetch the horn in the last battle!

birgitte returns and saves elayne! i am getting tired of how many times elayne has needed saving in recent books, but this was a cool moment nonetheless.

when tam helps mat out during the battle “tam al’thor, mat thought, i’m going to bloody send you my best pair of boots. light burn me, but i will.” he loves his father-in-law!!

narishma is definitely on my list of “minor characters i’ll be disproportionately mad if the show cuts” jkfjg he’s the only asha’man i’ve ever cared about, i love him!

the heroes of the horn to mat: “it is fitting, as lews therin did save your life both times.” “remember him. i have seen you murmur that you fear his madness, but all the while you forget that every breath you breathe - every step you take - comes at his forbearance. your life is a gift from the dragon reborn, gambler. twice over.” ROMANCE!!!! the heroes of the horn ship cauthor!!

“we can fight for you because of [rand’s banner], gambler, and because the dragon leads you” power couple!!!!!!

noal is a hero of the horn and saves olver!!! i did not care about noal when he was alive, i did not care about noal when he died, but this moment got me!

“i’m not bloody staying behind now. the babes are all right. i’m riding. my soldiers think i’m dead. our lines are breaking, our men dying. they have to see me to know that there is still hope...if they have ever needed their queen, this is the moment. nothing short of the dark one could stop me from returning now.” 👏👏👏

“you’re not my warder any longer. but you’re still my friend. will you ride with me?” “stubborn fool.” “i’m not the one who just refused to stay dead. together?” “together.” ❤️

absolutely no idea why elayne uses a sword that she has no idea how to use to lead the charge instead of channeling lmao she’s like “oh it’s more effective for the soldiers to see my fighting with a sword” no???? them seeing her riding a horse and channeling, as she’d been doing for the entire battle, would be just fine. sanderson just loves to find excuses to make elayne look incompetent i guess.

mat makes use of the zombies from zombietown!! that was neat

the seanchan spy was actually moghedien in disguise, whoa!

“[the plants rand is making grow] had come right where [aviendha] needed them to hide her approach. happenstance? she chose to believe otherwise. she could feel him, in the back of her mind. he fought, a true warrior. his battle lent her strength, and she tried to return the same. determination. honor. glory. fight on, shade of my heart. fight on.” ROMANCE!!!!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️ rand makes plants grow for aviendha and sun shine for elayne, but he doesn’t do shit for min jkdjfgkh it’s ridiculous how irrelevant min and min/rand is in this entire book. like i was actually JARRED when she showed up at the end and was treated as part of elayne and avi’s Rand Love Interest Unit lmao

rhuarc (under compulsion) attacks aviendha and she kills him, alas!!!

“strength, aviendha. rand’s determination filled her, radiating from the bond at the back of her mind. she looked up and felt all fatigue leave her, all distractions vanish.” ❤️❤️❤️ that “strength, aviendha” is probably just her own thoughts, but i choose to believe it was rand talking to her in her mind.

“mat saw elayne’s banner glowing above them in the sky, crafted of the one power, and caught a glimpse of someone who looked like her riding among the soldiers, hair glowing as if lit from behind her. she seemed a bloody hero of the horn herself.” ROMANCE!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ one last matlayne crumb for the road! one last elayne’s hair glowing in a conveniently-placed light source for the road! one last “tuon wishes mat would describe her like this in his narration” for the road! a bloody hero of the horn herself!!!! this man is IN LOVE!!!!!

“he did not go looking for [tuon], though. he had a feeling that she would expect him to perform his princely duties, whatever they might be. only...he did feel that strange tugging inside. getting stronger and stronger.” mat literally thinking “i do not want to go back to my wife because she will force me into the unwanted duties of my heterosexual marriage, and also i feel a tugging inside pulling me back to my very close male friend.” the “queer mat being forced through conversion therapy by tylin and tuon in order to make him a good heterosexual husband” interpretation of his arc simply writes itself!

“blood and bloody ashes, rand, mat thought. i’ve done my part. you do yours. amaresu’s words returned to him. each breath you take is at his forbearance, gambler...” my heart!! he decides to go help rand because of all the times rand helped him!!!!

mat deciding to go to rand: “my soul says i’m a fool” but he’s still going because his soul also says that rand is his soulmate!!

mat sends hawkwing to talk to tuon, but we don’t see the conversation, so i’m free to imagine that it went something like “what are you?” “an idiot sandwich” (although hawkwing did hate aes sedai and love conquering, so he might be down with the seanchan agenda for all i know smh)

perrin finally wakes up! last time we saw him was 200 pages ago, and even that was just the brief scene in the last battle chapter where he woke up in mayene and everyone told him to go back to sleep.

“if there was ever a time to push yourself, this is it...today, you just keep working until it’s done.” “but if i collapse...” “then you gave it your all.” “i could fail because i’ve run myself out of strength.” “then at least you didn’t fail because you held back.” this sets up perrin’s death perfectly! there’s a whole thing about how he always holds himself back bc he’s afraid of his own strength, so we could’ve had him finally go apeshit in this battle and then overexert himself and die heroically, having defeated slayer and protected rand/the cavern. at the end of the book he’s no longer ta’veren and feels already kinda like a loose end and not someone who will be of any importance in the next age, so he really should’ve been the one to die instead of egwene.

“the tugging was insufferable. bloody ashes, rand. leave me alone, you-” our Actual last cauthor ta’veren pull for the road (i believe) ❤️ it ended like it began, driving mat to distraction and consuming his every thought.

finally, someone (mat) rides a fucking dragon!!!! now he just needs to ride THE dragon and we’ll be golden

“he reached for the pack with rand’s banner, which he’d carried tied at his waist, but it was gone. panicked, mat looked about. ‘the banner! i dropped the bloody banner!’” rand’s banner is so important to him 😭😭

oh wait i think it’s because they need to be beneath rand’s banner to get the heroes of the horn to come to them djfkgjhkj i like my interpretation better though

alanna dies but releases rand’s bond first so he’s fine. so, okay, nynaeve healed her back to consciousness which DID save rand (so that alanna was conscious and could release the bond) but she dies anyway so nynaeve’s last battle contribution feels fairly pointless on the whole lmao

we get a brief mat-perrin reunion outside the cavern as they both protect rand! i DO finally get my fulfillment of the narrative promise that all 3 boys will need to be together at the last battle, but it still would’ve been better if they’d actually all SEEN each other and been in a scene together.

and we finally deal with slayer and padan fain, 2 boring and largely useless villains who lasted WAY too long. just the other day i saw someone propose that the show merge them and give fain slayer’s powers - i’m not sure how plausible that would be or if it would work, but i do think would be neat and a good way of condensing two underwhelming villains and thereby making them hopefully more effective/interesting. and like, mat just general-ed the ENTIRE LAST BATTLE so he really doesn’t NEED this one additional Final Foe Faceoff imo, and i think perrin’s defeat of slayer should’ve happened during the last battle proper instead of just making him be asleep the whole time. this quick little coda of perrin and mat defeating slayer and fain feels kinda silly and poorly placed.

but i love to see aviendha defeating graendal by unweaving a gateway!! which TPOD made a huge fuss of, and told us avi had a particular skill at it, and then we never saw it again! loved to see that come back and be relevant! avi’s whole battle against graendal was really great. she took out a forsaken, absolute queen!!!! but i wish we got a definitive answer about the injury to her legs - in the epilogue she can stand with assistance but can’t walk, and various healers give various opinions on whether she’ll be able to walk again. i need to know for fic purposes whether she’ll heal enough to walk or whether elayne and mat should invent a wheelchair for her!

the ultimate use of callandor is: rand tricks moridin into picking it up, and because of the design flaw, this allows moiraine and nynaeve to yank moridin (using the true power) into the circle and control him once there, so all 3 powers are used to defeat the dark one (as i predicted a few books ago!) rand claims that min came up with this idea. X doubt lmao every time we saw min think about callandor and the prophecies she was like “i have no idea what this means” and then other people figured things out without her help. sanderson was just desperately trying to give her one (1) contribution to the last battle.

elayne feeling rand channeling at this moment: “the feeling of supreme strength, the beauty of control and domination” one last Daddy Rand for the road! not even elayne, domme extraordinaire of all 3 of her partners, is immune!

“aviendha blinked at the light, and knew it was rand. it drew her back from the brink of darkness, flooding her with warmth. he was winning. he was winning. he was so strong. she saw the true warrior in him now.” ❤️❤️❤️

min also has a pov on this but it’s not important

logain did not die, unfortunately, but he seems to be set on a better path now that he sees people looking to the asha’man with gratitude and affection after they saved them and realizes that he wants the black tower to be a protector of the people. awww. i still don’t think he should’ve been the one to break the seals though. egwene, the watcher of the seals, whose breaking of them was narratively promised to us, should’ve survived the battle and broken them!!!!

“the way [nynaeve] folded her arms made her look as if she were holding herself together. wrapping her arms about herself to stop from crying. ‘who else died?’ perrin asked, bracing himself. it was obvious from her expression. she had lost one already.” one of her kids😭😭 nynaeve tells him about egwene. “i left...to save you. i only came along to protect you.” “you did, nynaeve. you protected rand so he could do what he had to do.” 😭😭😭

loial searches all over the camp for mat, but mat isn’t fucking there because he immediately ran right over to the seanchan camp!!! to put on a fireworks show for tuon whilst rand is on his deathbed!!!! i hate it here!!! this is our last mat pov ever and he has absolutely 0 thoughts about any of his randlander friends, just tuon!!!

tuon is pregnant, which she has learned from the walking pregnancy test, min. “mat felt a jolt, as sure as if a firework had gone off inside of his stomach. an heir. a son, no doubt! what odds that it was a boy? mat forced a grin. ‘well, i guess i’m off the hook now. you have an heir.’ ‘i have an heir,’ tuon said, ‘but i am the one off that hook. now i can kill you, if i want.’ mat felt his grin widen. ‘well, we’ll have to see what we can work out.’” note that it is mat’s FORCED grin that is widening - becoming more forced, i would interpret. not sure what to make of him hoping for a boy so badly. all i can think is that only women can sit on the crystal throne, so he hopes the baby is a boy so that tuon will need more babies and therefore need to keep mat around longer? but i don’t think it was ever said that men can’t sit on the crystal throne, just that none have in a long time, so idk. it IS kind of an interesting gender role reversal of like henry the eighth (and other monarchs in our history), where the king’s wife is useful only as a babymaking (specifically son-making) machine and he’ll dispose of her when she stops being useful in that way, but it’s just so sad that that’s the sort of life Our Mat ends up in. ugh!!!

also, mat hoping for a boy means it will absolutely be a girl, that’s just the rules of stories (also in avi’s rhuidean vision the ruler who succeeded tuon was a woman, so maybe her firstborn daughter). i first met mat in the show where he is a #girldad, so this baby has to be a girl because i want single #girldad mat to babynap his baby and flee back to randland to join up with avirandlayne raising their six (6) babies in caemlyn endgame. yes this is the premise of the fic i’ve had planned ever since i read the epilogue summary almost a year ago before i even started or planned to start the books (although my original thought was just cauthor, whereas now i know the galaxy brain endgame that is avimatrandlayne! tho i’ve written a bit of the fic already and am cutting avi’s quadruplets down to 1 baby because a) avi having quadruplets is absurd, b) i’d rather die than have to come up with names for 7 babies (including mat’s))

moghedien gets made damane, one last Fate Worse Than Death For Female Villain for the road 🙄 and the sul’dam is like “they said we couldn’t enslave any more AES SEDAI, not that we could’ve enslave ANYONE :)” which goes to show yet again that the seanchan are so not going to hold to this treaty.

nynaeve shares the news of rand’s death. at his girlfriends’ lack of reaction, some lords mutter to each other, “...expected the aiel savage to be heartless, and maybe the queen of andor, but the other one? not a tear.” you lords are dead to me, how dare you do elayne and avi like that and imply min was the one who loved him more! also, throughout the epilogue we have confirmation that absolutely everybody straight up knows that rand has 3 girlfriends, and NO ONE ever remarks on it or shows any sign that it’s unusual lmao that’s so weird!! would’ve made way more sense to keep all the relationships under wraps, i have no idea why (in universe OR narratively) the entire world was made aware of them.

avi says that with rhuarc dead, she thinks her rhuidean visions must be able to change and have already changed, phew!!

perrin, previously our most heterosexual and monogamous character, has some wildly bi and poly thoughts about rand and faile here: “how could i be expected to hold them both, then let one go?” “caemlyn, cairhien, dumai’s wells. here he saved one of them. cairhien, ghealdan, malden. here he had saved another. two forces in his life. each had pulled at him.” “he had wanted to be with his friend as he died. this time, he would be with faile where she had died.” like oh my god! put..........put perrin and faile in the polycule?? lmao

awww this moment of perrin finding faile in TAR and saving her life in the real world is so reminiscent of that moment in TDR ❤️❤️❤️

birgitte told olver to toss the horn away somewhere “preferably the ocean” WHAT IF THEY NEED THE HORN AGAIN AT THE NEXT LAST BATTLE AT THE END OF THE NEXT AGE????? IDIOT

birgitte is about to be reborn. maybe as one of melaine’s twins??? haha there’s no reason to think that, but melaine IS close to giving birth sooo

“elayne took her arm, eyes watering. ‘love and peace, birgitte. thank you.’ birgitte smiled, then closed her eyes, and let herself drift away.” ❤️❤️❤️

tam pov at rand’s funeral 😭😭 the plants growing at shayol ghul: “is this your gift to us, son? a final one?” “the aes sedai were planning an elaborate memorial for egwene; tam preferred a quiet affair for his son. rand could finally rest.” “tam looked at the corpse, gazing down into his son’s face by the fire’s light. he did not wipe the tears from his eyes. you did well. my boy...you did so well.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

IT IS LITERALLY EVIL THAT NO ONE TELLS TAM THAT RAND IS STLL ALIVE!!!!! and nynaeve and perrin and mat!!!!! more on this in a bit

elayne, avi, and min say that they have to make sure everyone believes rand is really gone. which you’ve accomplised so far by having no reaction to his “death” and making everyone weirded out and suspicious lmao great job guys.

me reading the epilogue summary a year ago: huh, i wonder how rand switches bodies with moridin

me reading the epilogue after having read all 14 books: huh, i wonder how rand switched bodies with moridin

lmao i was expecting we would see it happen onscreen, i was expecting some sort of magic ritual with alivia’s assistance, but nah! no explanation! at least not one obvious or clear enough for my dumb ass to pick up on. also i can’t believe the narrative went through all the trouble of randomly introducing alivia, a hyper powerful channeler, and telling us she was gonna be soooo important, and then all she does to “help rand die” is give him money and clothes so he can sneak away and start a new life! lame!

the horse he leaves on is dappled. jeade’en is also dappled according to wot wiki!!!! it says that this horse is a gelding but wot wiki says jeade’en is a stallion, but i don’t care, that’s jeade’en in my heart!!!!

and cadsuane is the new amyrlin seat. SIGHHHHHHHH. insert all my complaints in past posts about how egwene symbolized the best of the aes sedai institution and cadsuane symbolized the worst, so it makes no fucking sense that we would end the series by killing off the symbol of progress and improvement of the institution and replacing her with the symbol of The Old Ways That Are Demonstrably Bad.

what the fuck is going on with rand’s pipe!!!! what the fuck!!!! what’s happening!!!!!

also, i’m so mad that he can’t channel anymore. characters losing their powers after saving the world my detested!!!! i get that not being able to channel helps him sink into anonymity and live a normal life, but he struggled with saidin for so long and hated himself for being a channeler for so long and then FINALLY came to terms with it - at the beginning of this book he was thinking how he wanted to learn all the things and channel as much as he could and learn healing and good things the power could do! - so it feels............cheap somehow, or like undoing that part of his character arc, to have him end unable to channel AND RELIEVED ABOUT IT.

and he’s still like “gosh i just can’t choose between 3 women, how bad of me!” we have BEEN OVER THIS SOOOOO MANY TIMES, RAND

and so rand leaves ALONE telling NONE of his loved ones that he’s still alive and is pumped to spend the rest of his life WANDERING the world ALONE with NONE of his loved ones. okay i will admit that “rand wants nothing more than to settle down in a home with his loved ones” is mostly a show construction and not something that we really saw with book!rand, but still!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he has a second chance of life, why would he want to spend it by himself just wandering around rather than being with all his loved ones!!! i am PRAYING that he’s just taking a lil sabbatical (which he does deserve) and will soon return to elayne and avi and their six (6) babies in caemlyn, because otherwise, what the fuck!!!! the show ABSOLUTELY has to change this ending for rand, it would feel incredibly ooc and unsatisfying with the way s1 set up his character. the show should end with a timeskip where rand rolls up to caemlyn in time for the twins’ birth and then he gets to hold his babies and be at home with them and his wives, it would be such a beautiful full circle moment from his 1x08 dreamworld that he had to reject, now he gets to have it for real!!!

overall, i wish the post-last-battle segment had been longer. i could’ve used 30% less battle scenes and 30% more aftermath! but i know that rj wrote the epilogue (or most of it), so the book kinda had to end right there, even if i would’ve liked sanderson to add an epilogue of the epilogue showing where everyone was a year later or something. and hey, ending so abruptly after the last battle with so little info about what people are going to be up to allows more freedom for post-canon fics!

okay, book’s over! let’s rate some of the character endgames:

rand: 5/10. thrilled he’s still alive and gets a second chance at life, but pissed that he *is relieved* to have lost his channeling ability (losing it is one thing, but being relieved to have lost it is the real sticking point for me) and that he just fucked off, abandoned his partners and babies, and let his dad and friends all think he was dead. if i choose to believe that he will soon return to all his loved ones (which i DO, dammit), then his fate is 9/10.

mat: 1/10. and that one point only because he’s alive and so there are opportunities for fics to get him out of tuon’s clutches and back to the westlands.

perrin: 6/10. idk perrin’s ending is Fine. nothing unsatisfying about it (besides that i still think he should’ve died instead of egwene), but nothing remarkable about it either. he’ll be miserable married to the queen of saldaea, though, that’s for sure. he still just wants a simple life and will never be able to have it.

egwene: 2/10. went out like a badass and had a very powerful and emotional death scene, but should have lived because everyone’s toast without her in the fourth age.

nynaeve: 9/10. taking a point away bc she didn’t get to do much in the last battle, but otherwise her ending is nice!

elayne: 10/10. she’s got both her thrones, she’s got her babies, she’s got her girlfriend, she knows her boyfriend is alive, she is the only one willing to fight the seanchan, and she’s become a badass leader and had a fulfilling character arc. as always, she’s perfect.

now let’s do some overall series stats and superlatives!

book ranking from favorite to least favorite:

the shadow rising (my brain has willfully forgotten the perrin plotline of this book and chosen only to remember stone of tear everyone in the same place my beloved, the waste plotline my beloved, and the tanchico plotline my beloved. if you’d asked me mid-series, i would’ve put LOC first and this second or even third.)

the fires of heaven

lord of chaos (retroactively lost some places because, while it was my favorite immediately after reading, as i kept on i realized it had set up some plotlines and character separations i would end up hating)

the dragon reborn

the gathering storm (it’s only this high because i’ve given more weight to the awesome second half than the awful first half. would be even higher if i could discount the first half altogether. the “rand and avi are together in arad doman but narratively forbidden from interacting and so rand/min continue to act like a monogamous couple right in front of avi’s salad” situation makes me angrier than almost anything else in the entire series except for tylin/tuon/seanchan-related things jkfgh)

a crown of swords (again, has one of the most horrible and infuriating plotlines of the whole series, but i absolutely loved the rest of the book)

the great hunt (this and ACOS are pretty flexible)

eye of the world

a memory of light

winter’s heart

path of daggers

towers of midnight

crossroads of twilight

knife of dreams

top 9 characters (in alphabetical order) because i could only think of 9 off the top of my head so i’m leaving the 10th spot open for any other beloved character i might be forgetting at the moment because there are too many goddamn characters:

aviendha

egwene

elayne

faile

gawyn (fight me)

mat (pre-COT. i don’t know COT-AMOL mat)

nynaeve

rand

verin

fuck it actually the tenth spot goes to lini, she’s an icon

ship rankings (including a select few non-canon ones):

godtier: rand/elayne, rand/aviendha, mat/rand, mat/elayne, elayne/aviendha

good tier: egwene/gawyn, lan/nynaeve

mid tier: perrin/faile, moiraine/thom (it’s random and makes no sense but i don’t actively hate either party, which puts it above shit tier lmao)

shit tier: rand/min, mat/tuon, siuan/bryne, morgase/tallanvor

i was going to try and list out some favorite scenes or plotlines but there are just too many to think of looking back on all of them lmao you all who have been reading my recaps already know which parts were my favorites anyway! these recaps started as silly little shitposts for me to list out gay ass cauthor moments in TSR but then evolved into Serious Bookclub, all because you guys were always engaging with my observations and thoughts and sparking fun discussions! thank you all for tagging along on this journey!!!! i will close with my first ever recorded book thought, which remains a mood:

#the end of an era!!!!#wot #wot book spoilers

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swanmaids · 3 days

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fic writer questions - thanks for the tags, @grey-gazania @curufiin and @thelordofgifs! Sorry that it took so long.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 51, though one is a compilation of unrelated short pieces.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 89,680

3. What fandoms do you write for? At present just Silm and Lotr, but I'm hoping to participate in Yuletide this year and thinking about The Handmaiden, Hustlers, Swan Lake, and The Wolf Den as potential fandoms to offer

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

spirited away (outsider pov legolas/gimli)

post mortem (clinical/epistolary post-second kinslaying)

it takes a village (5+1 SoF and celebrimbor)

the straight road (epistolary legolas/gimli)

the stones wept (orpheus and eurydice au legolas/gimli)

It seems like my most popular pieces are L/G or sons of Feanor. And they ARE fun to write about, so I'm not complaining!

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes. But sometimes it takes an embarrasingly long time. Because I suck.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? haven (everyone dies) sister sister (everyone dies) if our deed faileth (everyone dies) woe unto worlds end (everyone dies)

Sensing a theme.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? coastin' (Elwing gets her pussy ate by her sexy husband and has an orgasm)

8. Do you get hate on fics? Lol I'm not relevant enough for that.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes lol. I'm not sure what's meant by "what kind", but I've done F/F, M/M, F/M, F/M/M, M/F/F/F/F and a fairly big variety of kinks so like... most kinds?

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? No, and I'm not a huge reader of them, although I long for a Silm/Succ crossover

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! The lovely @camille-lachenille translated see it fall, child of war into French. You can read it here.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No. I write very slowly and erratically, which I don't think would be fair to any potential cowriter.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Legolas/Gimli is a long term otp and one couple where I really can't see either side with anyone else (if they want to invite Aragorn or Eomer to join for a night I'm not opposed). Elwing and Earendil is another couple that I feel the same about (and I'm also defensive of them as a couple and genuinely see them as an example of some of Tolkien's most romantic writing). I also really like Celegorm/Orome for being basically perfect for my id.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Eeeh. I'm really trying not to officially throw in the towel on any of my wips. It's just taking me a long time...

16. What are your writing strengths? Can I say smut? I think I'm quite good at setting, food, and clothing descriptions too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Any plot that's more complicated than "emotion in space" or "dick in hole". Also actually DOING the writing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I used to do it much more than I currently do. Now I feel like it breaks the flow of the story.

19. First fandom you wrote for? LOTR.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? I've said it before but I was really pleased with how one of your girls came out and have reread it a couple of times since publishing. Actually I think I got some writers block after publishing it because I feel like I can't surpass it lol.

This was fun to do! I'm very late to the party so I think most people have been tagged, but if anyone else wants to do it then please go ahead and say I tagged you.

#tag game

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i-did-not-mean-to · 14 days

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20 questions for fic writers

Thank you so much @thenookienostradamus and @lordoftherazzles for the tag...

Let's see...

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 554 (with two not revealed yet as we speak...). Many of those are collections, though.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 1,986,915 (erm...yeah...well)

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien (The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silm). (+ the odd AU or Richard Armitage movie)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Tumblr Imagines (Wild Mix of everything) , October 2022 Ficlet run (same), A key change (Remix Fic), Black (Thorin x OC), Silm imagines and ficlets (Wild Mix again)

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, in due time. I struggle a lot with being overwhelmed at times (imposter syndrome, fear of not knowing what to say, comments heaping up), but I am so thankful for every comment that I do try to answer them all in a timely manner.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I've written about 1k fics; I do not remember all of them :s I generally don't write angst, so I really couldn't say. Sorry :(

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Everything? I am a Happy Ending person, so most of my fics (eventually) get a happy ending :D

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not yet (crossed fingers). At times, I get comments I don't really understand (autism ahoi), but I hope that people didn't mean anything mean by it :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? SMUT? ME? Noooo *cough*...Let's say it has happened! What kind? What kind do you want, baby? MF, FF, MM, trans characters, non-binary characters, threesomes, it has all happened. Sweet and tender? Check. Rough and dirty? Check. Dubconny and dark? Check. Just tell me what you want, and there is a good chance I've either done it or would do it :D

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I have written one crossover for an event (where characters go into a whole different franchise). Otherwise, I am an AU bitch. Disney movies, musicals, you name it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Again, not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Once for an event. Otherwise, I think one could call what @cilil and @melkors-big-tits did for the calendar co-writing. In a way, many collabs with artists are co-written. Any event collab is co-writing (to me). Me stealing @cilil's ideas is co-writing. Me asking for ideas on the @fellowshipofthefics and @tolkienpinupcalendar servers is co-writing. So...yes...yes I have, and I've loved it.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Ori x OC, Maedhros x Fingon, Eönwë x Gothmog

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Black. It's one of my first fics, and there's only a chapter or so missing...but I don't know if I'll ever finish writing that last chapter. There are a few more where I've written 1-5 additional chapters and never uploaded them...for reasons (?). By now, I am too ashamed and lazy to get back to them.

16. What are your writing strengths? Versatility and speed. I am a mediocre writer in my 5th foreign language, and I make no bones about it. Nevertheless, I am willing to give anything and everything a try :D

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I am extremely wordy. It takes me too long to get to the smut. I refuse to describe settings and geography, so all my plots seem a bit floating and vague.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I avoid using languages I don't speak which includes Tolkien's languages. I am too afraid to make mistakes or to sound cringe to people who know better than me. As for RL languages...a word maybe, but a whole sentence (again) might feel contrived...IDK everyone does as they want, but I am not feeling it for myself.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Hamilton (and yes, those stories are orphaned and can never be traced back to me) Otherwise, the Hobbit LOL

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Monkey-business, because I really liked writing that fic. It's a kitschy Hallmark Christmas story featuring Ori (not interesting, I know). But that's my personal fave lol...

Hmmm, let's tag @maglor-my-beloved, @lathalea, @scyllas-revenge, @laurfilijames, @middleearthpixie, @littlesweetdressmaker, @legolasbadass, @urwendii, @cilil, @the-red-butterfly, @fishing4stars, and @elentarial to get a good mix of people :D

#og post #random reblogs <3 #fanfiction #writing #tag game #questions #writer questions

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thewulf · 3 months

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Hi!! I found your Aragorn fics a few days ago and can’t stop thinking about them! Your writing and characterization of him are so amazing! (LOTR and The Outsiders are 2 of my favourite books/series so I was very excited to see you write for both!!)

I had an Aragorn request that I wanted to send you; if it’s something you’d be interested in writing I know it’ll be perfect (but if it doesn’t strike your fancy I completely understand)!! After reading your fic with the orc attack I was thinking about how Aragorn would respond to reader being injured defending the hobbits. Maybe she is on the journey with them (the reason why is up to you) and Strider leaves to scout or something before the hobbits are attacked. I’d love to read how you think he would react when he comes back and finds her injured! Especially if he thinks she was being reckless, not knowing what really happened until one of the hobbits tells him.

(This is a bit detailed but whether or not you choose to write it, I just want to say thank you for sharing your great stories!!)

Ohhh I just LOVE this!! You absolutely got it! Hoping to get this out by the end of the week.

Thank you SO much. He's been so much fun to write. LOTR in general is soooo much fun.

Also love detailed requests so thank you!!

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lesbiansforboromir · 2 years

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For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. The Return of the King, LoTR Book 6, Ch 2, The Land of Shadow

Actually it occurs to me now, as it has many times when reading Sam’s specific point of view in Mordor, that this is one of the most revelatory passages in regards to the point of many of the other narratives within LotR. And honestly I say this as both praise and scorn. Because yes, this is a beautiful passage, and it’s language inspires almost unheeding of it’s specific meaning. The high beauty and passing shadow means as many things as the number of people that read of them.

But I’m afraid I will once again make this about christian religion AND Denethor AND Boromir so sorry. (not really)

Here, defiance is framed as selfish. When Sam is exhausted at the top of the tower of Cirith Ungol, hopelessly lost, surrounded by death and darkness, he sings just for the sake of adding something beautiful into that terrible place. He is defying the darkness around him. But, as this passage tells us, this is apparently not an un-complicatedly good or even neutral act. Instead, Sam should not have even worried for the darkness to begin with. His fate, and the fate of the things he loves, should not have troubled him, because in the face of the untouchable light and high beauty, none of it really matters apparently.

Obviously in this universe high and beautiful things and celestial lights are holy, they are divine, so the meaning is clear; ‘No matter what happens to you, so long as Eru is on his throne, nothing is wrong with the world and you should not even begrudge the pain and suffering levied upon you and your loved ones, it will all turn out right in the end.’

This is a very Christian sentiment and it spotlights the specific ‘sin’ Denethor AND Boromir are committing within the morality of the books. Because Denethor and Boromir are concerned with the things they love and their suffering. Boromir himself is apathetic about the high beauty and Eru’s rightness and elves and the divine blood he and Aragorn carry. His whole motive is to protect his people, he does not care about whether the actions he takes in their defense could be considered a challenge or an affront to Eru (as the Ring is an instrument by which Sauron seeks to challenge Eru’s divine right to the throne of the world, and therefore using it is inherently blasphemous.) To Boromir, if he is working towards the safety of his city, his people, his family, then he is content that he is serving as he should be. Boromir is, in essentials, the agnostic of this story.

Denethor, on the other hand, DOES have a relationship with this high beauty, albeit a very complex one. He has loved the divine light, he is a member of the faithful, he has kept to their ways and loved as they have loved his whole life. He is even much more circumspect about using the Ring as well, favouring just keeping it safe and out of Saurons hands. He wants to be good. And that has destroyed him. It has taken all things he has ever loved from him, this eternal defence and embattlement against The One Who Would Be God to champion Eru. Boromir literally died on a quest because of a divinely ordained dream, his son! And here is Gandalf, the closest thing to an angel middle-earth has, a divine messenger, here to tell him what else he has to sacrifice and how he mustn’t begrudge Boromir’s loss anyway.

Denethor is ultimately defiant against the darkness, he wants to protect his people, he oversees everything from the large to the small, he barely sleeps, he has dauntless will and resolve to protect Gondor and it is because of him that Gondor survives at all. But to the narrative, that is still a selfish motive. In the end the only thing he can think of to save himself and the son he loves from more suffering is to die. But suicide is a sin, Denethor ‘does not have the authority to order the hour of his own death’ as Gandalf says. It is another blasphemous act, because Denethor has LOST faith, one might say he has lost the perspective of the high beauty and his own insignificance. Denethor in fact now believes that the lives and peace of his sons ARE more important to him than God. So Denethor represents a man who, through the trials of the world, LOSES faith.

And then there is Faramir, THE faithful one. He is the one his family must be compared too, caring for his people to an extent, but firmly reinforcing the fact that, ‘I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory.’ A sentiment he reinforces when Denethor challenges him about it, ‘Ever your desire is to appear lordly and generous as a king of old, gracious, gentle. That may well befit one of high race, if he sits in power and peace. But in desperate hours gentleness may be repaid with death.’ [-] ‘But not with your death only, Lord Faramir: with the death also of your father, and of all your people, whom it is your part to protect now that Boromir is gone.’ And Faramir says ‘so be it’, Faramir loves God more than he loves his people or his family, he is willing to let all of them suffer and die in order to keep faith with Him, and the story rewards him for it with the life and peace his brother and father were never allowed.

And technically both Denethor and Boromir as apostates are treated quite gently and sympathetically by the narrative in comparison to much christian dogma. Boromir and Denethor are still allowed their nobility and valour and good intentions, but in the end they are pitiable figures to the wider morality of the tale. They have loved people too much and God too little and through it have lost that perspective that the faithful believe is necessary to pass through the world properly. Neither of them could lie down and let ‘for a moment, their own fate, and even their loved one’s, cease to trouble them’.

And that! Is literally why they’re my favourite characters, I too love people more than God, even in the face of a fathomless eternity. If I were given the choice to save people from terrible suffering in their short lives at the cost of defying God’s right to the throne of the world, I would also take it. Mutable things that do not last are just as divinely important as eternity. I will not wait till I’m dead to give my full love to things and neither did Denethor or Boromir!!!

#denethor #boromir #tolkien #lotr #lord of the rings #the lord of the rings #samwise #sam gamgee #cirith ungol #return of the king #the return of the king #faramir #text post #tolkien meta #erran vs tolkien

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luna-redamancy · 2 years

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hey idk if u active but, u see im pretty new to lotr and the hobbit (ik i am late to the party) but i am really in need of some thorin x reader where the reader used to be from a royal family until orcs attacked her palace, as she becomes older she finds Gandalf who invites her to join Thorin's Company-- once in the company she tries to hide her identity since her story in known well in erebor, one day she hears the dwarves telling that story to Bilbo, and Thorin notices the pain in her eyes <3

Welcome to the Fandom! It's never too late and we're happy to have you! I hope you enjoy this:

(A/N: I wrote this without my glasses on, so I do apologize in advance if there are any mistakes)

“You haven’t heard?” Bofur turned to Bilbo with wide eyes. The Company was all gathered around the campfire, sitting around in a circle together as they waited to eat their dinner of a rabbit stew that Bombur was cooking.

“Well us hobbits don’t hear much, unless it’s the stories Gandalf tells us,” It was true, hobbits weren’t known for leaving the comforts of their homeland and the only news they got was through the travelers and merchants that came through their towns. They wouldn’t necessarily call that reliable, though.

“Well…” Bofur looked around, face growing grim as he recalled the story. “The (L/n) family, known for their kindness and democratic policies-” Bofur began explaining how well loved your family was, making you raise a brow. Not often did someone state this part of your history.

“It was a full moon in the middle of winter…” Bofur’s words made you stiff, your body tensing and your eyes suddenly hyper-focused your vision on the dirt near the fire as you realized what story he was about to tell.

“The orcs of the West banded together and entered the kingdom in a secret fashion, doing silent kills of the guards along their way to the castle gates.”

The entire Company grew quiet, all knowing how sad the event was.

“While the royal family was sleeping, they entered the palace.”

Shutting your eyes, you tried to take deep breaths through your nose as each memory of that night flashed through your mind.

“Where are you going?” You asked your big brother, looking at him with wide eyes as he put you in the secret tunnels beneath the floor. He was nervous, breathing heavily as he gave you a bag of clothes and food.

“I’ll be right back, I need to grab-” You couldn’t hear what else he said as he mumbled to himself, shutting you down in the tunnels for safety as he left the room.

As you sat in the darkness, suddenly screams filled the halls, making your eyes widen as you looked up at the latch.

Covering your mouth, you held in your own cries of terror as footsteps thudded on the ground above you.

“No, please!” Your brother pleaded, making tears sting your eyes as you heard the swish of a blade, maniacal laughter following it. A sickening crunch was heard as your brother’s body was disfigured for sport, the blood seeping down through the floor, dripping near your feet.

“They say the princess escaped,” Bofur continued the story, oblivious to your painful memories. “Her body was never found with the rest of the family, and they suspect that the family knew for years about plots against them,”

“Why would they suspect that?”

“They found plans in the king’s office that indicated they wanted to build secret bunkers and tunnels for safety.”

Thorin wasn’t really paying attention to Bofur anymore, instead honing in on you as you looked at the ground. Your eyes were glassy as you recalled the stench of death when you came back to your home days later. The images of their bodies engraved in your mind as well as the blood splatter caked onto the family portraits. They had tried to run, but they weren’t fast enough.

You remembered the bile that filled up in your throat when you saw them, the way you ran to the nearest bathroom to vomit in the midst of your sobbing.

Zoning back into reality, you realized a single tear traveled down your face. Making it look like you were adjusting your hair, you carefully wiped your face, but the pain in your eyes lingered.

“Stew’s ready,” Ori called out to the group. You watched as everyone got up to get their food, Bilbo pausing when you didn’t stand up.

“Are you going to eat?”

“Nah, not very hungry right now.” You replied, faking a smile as you got up to go to your bedroll.

Thorin stood, carefully making his way over to you. The pain on your face was unmistakable, something only someone who lost everything could detect. Just like him, you lost your family and your home.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” He murmured lowly so no one could hear him. Your eyes snapped to lock with his as shock took its place on your face as he gave you a sad smile.

“What’re you talking about?” You faked nonchalance, tilting your head.

Thorin shook his head at you, understanding why you would still want to hide your identity.

“You don’t have to say anything, just know that you have someone to talk to if you so wish.”

As Thorin began to walk away, you replied, voice barely above a whisper.

“What will you do, now that you know?” You were terrified, the last time someone found out you were hunted for weeks like a rabbit being chased by hungry wolves.

Thorin turned back to you, looking over his shoulder for the briefest moments to ensure you still had your privacy.

“I will protect you.”

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